High Plains Gardening
The gardening website of the Texas High Plains Region
Woody
A woody plant is a plant that produces wood as its structural tissue, usually trees and shrubs.
If I had to pick my favorite plant, this is it. Long blooming and drought tolerant with only minimal maintenance of late winter cutting back, and maybe a bloom pick-me-up deadheading at mid summer. It will also re seed some so you’ll have more of them the next year. It’s fragrance is light and pleasantly of sage. Salvia greggiis are native to Texas in the Kerrville area. It is my favorite, but not the absolutely perfect plant. The stems are quite brittle and very easily break or snap off, even when you’re carefully weeding around it.
Summer flowering low water-use native tree, several varieties to choose from. Willow like green leaves. Cold hardy reliably in Zone 7, will winter over most years in Zone 6. The variety pictured in the close-up flower photo is "Lucrecia Hamilton", the variety in the third photo is 'Art's Seedless'. During early autumn snows, be quick to shake snow off the branches to avoid breakage.
Cliff fendlerbush is another Texas and Southwest native shrub too little used in the xeric landscape. Springtime lifts the cliff fendlerbush above the ordinary into prominence in the landscape. It is said the ravines and arroyos look dotted with snow from a distance, so profuse are the fragrant, creamy white, sometimes with a pink tinge, four petaled flowers in May and June. It's natural element is rocky arroyos (rupicola=rock dweller), cliff ledges and limestone soils with good drainage that average 12-18 inches of moisture with hot sunny days.
Grayleaf cotoneaster is a wonderful low growing shrub for the xeric garden. Evergreen or semi-evergreen in colder winters, it provides good winter interest, along with the other seasons. Small oval shaped silver/gray leaves cover the many arching branches. Tiny white flowers appear in late spring followed by red berries in late fall and winter. Low water use once established.
Artemisia versicolor 'Sea Foam' is mostly grown for its gray foliage. To keep it's desired compact shape, cut off flower stalks after blooming, which is its only maintenance. Soft, rubber-like feel to its short, clustered, needle-like appearance on short 1 inch wide columns. It gives the impression of a coral bed in your rock garden. Not invasive. 2004 Plant Select Plant.
A Plant Select Plant for 2004, Pink Texas Skullcap has often been listed as a Zone 7 plant, but it is reliably cold hardy in Zone 6 and in protected Zone 5b sights. I’ve grown it in my xeristrip since 2000. Long blooming with no maintenance ever performed. These low growing, mounding skullcaps are excellent for Panhandle xeristrips and rock gardens. Native varieties are S. drummondii, and S. resinosa. The hybrid cultivar, S. x ‘Violet Cloud’, introduced by High Country Gardens, is an excellent violet skullcap as well as the natives.
Golden current makes an attractive taller shrub at the edge of a lawn or vegetable garden, positioned to catch extra irrigation water. For three stunning weeks in spring it will be covered with tiny yellow flowers. I planted two in 2008, and have yet to notice the tasty berries, red currents, for which they are known. Quite cold hardy, if placed in full sun, it'll need twice a month watering to survive, or in half or more shade, once a month watering is sufficient. Multi stem shrub with small, rounded leaves with cut edges makes an attractive barrier or hedge plant.
New Mexican privet can be viewed either as a tall shrub or smaller tree. New Mexican privet will flower (tiny yellow) before leafing out with small oval glossy green leaves to be followed with black berries in the fall. Heat and drought tolerant will live in most soils and water-use areas. Attractive taller plant for the home landscape, similar to the yaupon holly in form.
Butterfly bush is a perennial shrub that comes in many colors from white, yellow, pink, rose, to mauve and deep purple. Native to China and is available in many different hybrids, cultivars or varieties. Quite fragrant, attracts butterflies. Butterfly bush needs very good drainage, it will not tolerant wet clay soil. It will grow in poor soil with good drainage. Butterfly bush trives quite well in low water-use areas. Alternate spelling is Buddleja. Not invasive in the Texas Panhandle.Several species are native to parts of Texas and Mexico. B.
Yuccas for Texas High Plains Landscapes
Shadscale lives in alkaline caliche soil in most of its native range throughout the Southwest and has a high tolerance of saline or sodic soils. Given improved soil conditions, it will grow larger. Do not improve the soil to insure it keeps its neat, compact shape. Shadscale blooms yellow flowers in early summer which mature into seed heads. Its silver-gray leaves are semi-evergreen.
Yaupon holly is a tall shrub or a small tree growing typically to 8-12 feet in the Texas Panhandle. Cold hardy to Zone 7 (still best to plant in a protected location), it prefers partial shade, especially afternoon shade. Low (once established) to high water use. Small leathery, glossy, evergreen, dark green leaves (to 1.5” long) have toothed margins on dense branching. Insignificant greenish white flowers in springtime followed by red berries in the fall. Female plants require a male plant to pollinate and bear fruit (dioecious). Attractive tall, traditional looking shrub.
Desert never equates with drab. The flowers on Desert Bird of Paradise are simply stunning! Though classified as a Zone 7 plant, I’ve grown Desert Bird of Paradise for 3-4 years near a south facing wall and have seen several others around Amarillo, without it dying back it to roots. However, if it does, just prune out the dead wood. Eye catching flowers bloom continually from June into fall and attract hummingbirds. Finely divided green leaves. It is said to survive on 8” of rainfall, but monthly soakings enhance it. C. mexicana, Mexican Bird of Paradise and C.
Native woody shrub to Texas, New Mexico and west to California from 3000 to 8000 feet in elevation. It is best to plant in soil with only inorganic amendments. It becomes more floppy and flowers less when fed and watered well. This is a case of less yielding more.
Reseeds some. I've never seen this as a problem. Locate in a sunny area with full exposure to the sun for best growth and backlighting. If planted against a wall or fence it will lean towards the sun and looked tipped over.
The Arizona rosewood is classified either as a quite tall shrub or short to mid height tree. One of it's best features is that it is evergreen, with slender glossy green leaves approximately 3 inches long. It puts on small white flowers in summer. One of the few drought tolerant, native, evergreen trees available in the trade. Slow growing.
Junipers are native to much of the U.S. and come in many sizes and shapes. Juniperus horizontalis is the low growing and spreading juniper, used mainly as an evergreen groundcover. There are many varieties available, one or more to suit every purpose and location. Colors and heights vary from the common dark green evergreen to blue green, blue and even lime or chartruese. Their hallmark is their fine texture, many of the newer varieties have a pleasant soft touch. Water use can vary as well, but typically, once established many will thrive on once a month deep watering.
This native shrub should be used alot more in our area. Drought tolerant shrub. If planted in a moister area it is important to have good drainage. Attractive and pleasantly fragrant fern-like foliage. The tiny white flowers with yellow centers that appear towards the end of the branches in June should be clipped in fall to late winter for better appearance. It is said the deer do not browse fernbush. Semi evergreen, it does loose its leaves in Amarillo. Reputed to be cold hardy to -25°.
Native evergreen shrub that makes an excellent hedge plant and wind break. Its blue-green prickly leaves keep the unwanted out (to a point). Please allow room for its spread.
A habitat plant for shelter and as a food source of food for birds and other wildlife that is an attractive addition to the home landscape, where an evergreen shrub is called for in a sunny spot. Sun yellow flowers in March. Cold hardy to -20°, algerita can be found growing from 4000 to 7000 ft. in elevation in Texas, the southwest and Mexico.
Arizona rosewood is one of the few native evergreen trees or tall shrubs that are low water-use. Underused in the Texas Panhandle, mostly due to lack of availability. But with searching in Albuquerque or Santa Fe, one should be able to locate a specimen. Faster growing than the Chisos rosewood. Long slender, serrated, glossy green leaves with white flowers in summer.
One-seed juniper is the juniper found in the dry hills and mesas throughout our area and the Southwest in elevations from 3500 to 8000'. Slow growing on top, it's tap root grows quickly and deeply, making them very difficult to transplant. It's habit is shrubby with several stems and branches growing low to the ground, making it a good habitat plant. Extremely drought, heat and cold tolerant.
Rose of Sharon, or Althea, is another reliable old-fashioned garden plant well suited for the Texas Panhandle. My favorite cultivar is Diana because of the brilliant, pure white 4-5” flowers and somewhat glossy green leaves. Diana is also one of the smaller varieties up to about 6 - 8 feet, while others can reach 10’ tall. Similar to most altheas, 'Diana' is a prolific bloomer.
Wagons Ho! Rugged, ragged and windblown -- a true picture of the western and southwestern landscape. If you have a skeleton of a steer's head, now is the time to use it, along with that wagon wheel. Sometimes referred to as the western sage.
Big sagebrush is a coarse, many-branched, aromatic, pale-grey shrub with yellow flowers and light silvery-grey foliage. It flowers in late summer to early fall. The leaves are wedge-shaped with three lobes.
Big Bend silverleaf is the most cold hardy of the Leucophyllums and has wintered over in Amarillo, Zone 7, for 5 years so far. Possibly cold hardy to Zone 6. It is hard to beat a more attractive summer blooming shrub for small xeric spaces. After summer rainfalls, Big Bend silverleaf, native to the Big Bend National Park area, becomes covered in silver blue flowers that twinkle like jewels among its silvery gray leaves. Hard to find, it's worth searching for.
Winterfat, formerly Ceratoides lanata, is a drought and heat tolerant that normally is found in poor, alkaline soils throughout the Southwest in grasslands and scrublands. Winterfat is a low rounded woody shrub with pale blue green to gray leaves. The distinctive characteristic is the long wooly seed stalk it puts up in the summer. Towards winter, the stalk appears to be covered with wool.
Grown in the South for decades, most people think of crape myrtle as a native American plant; it is however native to China and Japan. Small tree or large shrub that is cold hardy to Zone 7. I’ve grown the same crape myrtles for over 20 years, but they’re planted close (too close!) to my bricked house on both the northeast and northwest corners. They’ve been stem hardy, not just root hardy, and have grown up to about 10-12’. In most cases, crape myrtle will not grow into tree form in the Panhandle, but there are mature, tree size crape myrtles in Amarillo.
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